Abstract

Metallic alloys are widely used in engineering and are in constant development to optimize their properties. Computational strategies to perform virtual design and testing of these materials would reduce the high time and costs associated nowadays to the development of new alloys with properties tailored to a specific application. This can be achieved by coupling different simulation methods in a multiscale framework covering different length scales. An important simulation technique within a multiscale strategy is dislocation dynamics, which can be the intermediate link between atomistic simulations and crystal plasticity approaches. Within this context, this first year assessment is focused on dislocation dynamics simulations of precipitation hardening in the Al-Cu system. Particularly, the dislocation-precipitate interaction with theta’ precipitates is considered, assessing the effect of factors such as the strain rate of the loading, the orientation of the precipitate, the elastic mismatch between the precipitate and the matrix and the influence of the stress field caused by the stress free transformation strain of the precipitates.